"Things You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog Intermittently."
30 April 2012
Adolescent death rates around the world
Chart data collected by George Patton of the University of Melbourne for an article published in theLanceton April 25th. The abstract mentions the difficulty of collecting such data and making such comparisons.
This isn't really a representation of death rates from 'around the world'. It is more of a representation of death rates from Western nations, or first world nations, or outside of Japan and Singapore from caucasian majority nations.
I wonder what the death rates are in African and Latin American nations.
Would American death rates for different ethnic groups mirror those of the nations their ancestors came from?
The comment above, besides being slightly racist (hint, hint), makes an interesting point. It should be rather titled "adolescent death rates across 23 high-income countries", but that's a rather long and boring title.
The complaint is pointless anyway. It's obviously a comparison of the "First World" countries. There's not really any point in comparing wealthy first world nations to "developing countries".
Because adolescent deaths in the First World are almost all violent (many self-inflicted and/or accidental) they provide a good measure of violent deaths across the society. Adolescents in the poor world often die of the same things as adults: AIDS, starvation, childbirth, waterborne disease, TB. It is not racist to observe this: it is racist to pretend these differences don't exist.
As the mother of two adolescents in the U.S., this is depressing. Now I just need to forget I saw this study.(It's not like I wasn't worrying already.)
You all might be interested to watch this video from TED Talks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
This one in particular features a well known statistician (sp?) from Europe who has compiled a large volume of information on mortality rates & income rates from across the world, and has put that information into a very compelling software program which allows for the visual representation of the statistics.
This guy also talks about the difficulty in obtaining & making useable the information & statistics from around the world that are already available, and how to bridge that gap so that funding & aid decisions can be made carefully based on the intricacies of each nation's problems & strong suits.
Why are you still reading this? You should be watching the video by now. It is by far the most interesting video on statistics you might ever see.
All those "rights" seem pointless when they're killing off your young people. The right to own a gun. The right to not wear a seatbelt. And so on. If the portrayal of secondary and tertiary schooling in movies and on TV is anything like the reality of US schools I'm very sad for you all. Perhaps seeing that clique system so many times (every show) breeds it into each subsequent generation? Maybe the idea of a uniform in primary and secondary school (and therefore a levelling of class, financial status and fashion ability) isn't so stupid after all. Or maybe the lack of quality and expedient medical care across the board adds to these drastic figures. And why are my mates the Kiwis so sad? I hate to see those big bands of mid-blue in NZ, Ireland, Finland, etc. Argh, this is killing me. I'm off to bed.
This isn't really a representation of death rates from 'around the world'. It is more of a representation of death rates from Western nations, or first world nations, or outside of Japan and Singapore from caucasian majority nations.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the death rates are in African and Latin American nations.
Would American death rates for different ethnic groups mirror those of the nations their ancestors came from?
The comment above, besides being slightly racist (hint, hint), makes an interesting point. It should be rather titled "adolescent death rates across 23 high-income countries", but that's a rather long and boring title.
ReplyDeleteHere's an article that should go with the charts.
http://jezebel.com/5904955/why-isnt-the-teen-mortality-rate-dropping
Agreed on the racist vibe of that post.
DeleteThe complaint is pointless anyway. It's obviously a comparison of the "First World" countries. There's not really any point in comparing wealthy first world nations to "developing countries".
That is, unless of course you want to use a third world country as your global benchmark, or standard for success...
DeleteBecause adolescent deaths in the First World are almost all violent (many self-inflicted and/or accidental) they provide a good measure of violent deaths across the society. Adolescents in the poor world often die of the same things as adults: AIDS, starvation, childbirth, waterborne disease, TB. It is not racist to observe this: it is racist to pretend these differences don't exist.
ReplyDeleteUh, you must have missed this part: Would American death rates for different ethnic groups mirror those of the nations their ancestors came from?
DeleteAs the mother of two adolescents in the U.S., this is depressing. Now I just need to forget I saw this study.(It's not like I wasn't worrying already.)
ReplyDeleteYou all might be interested to watch this video from TED Talks.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
This one in particular features a well known statistician (sp?) from Europe who has compiled a large volume of information on mortality rates & income rates from across the world, and has put that information into a very compelling software program which allows for the visual representation of the statistics.
This guy also talks about the difficulty in obtaining & making useable the information & statistics from around the world that are already available, and how to bridge that gap so that funding & aid decisions can be made carefully based on the intricacies of each nation's problems & strong suits.
Why are you still reading this? You should be watching the video by now. It is by far the most interesting video on statistics you might ever see.
Some of them remember reading about him in a 2008 TYWKIWDBI post with a link to that video -
Deletehttp://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/05/fertility-and-longevity-correlate-with.html
- and seeing a separate video by him in 2010:
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/12/almost-three-years-ago-i-wrote-post.html
I fully agree with you; as a former lecturer (on totally different subject matter), I'm in awe of his presentation style.
How sad! When it comes to deaths by violence, we're number 1. I wonder if it could possibly have anything to do with the availability of guns?
ReplyDeleteAll those "rights" seem pointless when they're killing off your young people. The right to own a gun. The right to not wear a seatbelt. And so on. If the portrayal of secondary and tertiary schooling in movies and on TV is anything like the reality of US schools I'm very sad for you all. Perhaps seeing that clique system so many times (every show) breeds it into each subsequent generation? Maybe the idea of a uniform in primary and secondary school (and therefore a levelling of class, financial status and fashion ability) isn't so stupid after all. Or maybe the lack of quality and expedient medical care across the board adds to these drastic figures. And why are my mates the Kiwis so sad? I hate to see those big bands of mid-blue in NZ, Ireland, Finland, etc. Argh, this is killing me. I'm off to bed.
ReplyDelete